Ok, that is a fair rebuttal. As far as writing in earlier times because you don't think there are enough scary attitudes in the present, I just still think that is a kind of defeatist mentality we should not encourage in creative writing of any kind.
Were you having a dig?
I am working on a collection of modern supernatural creepy mysteries that take place in our familiar world. I have seven in need of polishing, seven sturdy outlines and another seven or so promising intriguing possibilities. I am not short of creative juice. But I can't set a modern story in the past, it doesn't work. Using a failure of technology to simulate it's absence is to me a cop out. We're surrounded by tech, it goes wrong, that's normal, not scary supernatural.
That said, I have one tale set in the 1980s, but only because the setting doesn't physically exist any more, and its the end of a poignant era. The story would work now, if such places existed.
My phone is telling me stuff I didn't know I needed to know, but if I wanted to use a smart phone as a plot device, a spooky possession maybe? Its connected to almost every other device on the planet. Any demonic force taking control is still a user, and program logs are kept; its a huge leap of the imagination to believe its been hacked by something paranormal, when there are millions of malware writers junking up the world.
The streets are well lit, homes clean and warm, communication is instantaneous, knowledge at our fingertips and even death has been sanitised. If I report something spooky, the obvious question is did I take a picture? Did I call someone? Did I google the phenomena? Why not? Technology failed? Oh how convenient.
Not saying its impossible to tell spooky tales in the modern age, I already have a few, but the ones that would work best in an early time, aren't particularly modern, and a lot of what makes a Victorian setting so perfect for ghostly tales, just doesn't apply now. Even the characters are not as superstitious, and would default to a worldly explanation, even if they don't know what that is.
I suppose my original point is that its hard.
I considered updating a M R James classic, A View From a Hill, but the modern equivalent to magical looking glasses that show the past is really just a phone with an augmented reality app rendering an historical landscape in real time. I could interweave some mystery about where the historical data is streaming from, but it becomes a bit meh.